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A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered as art. Happenings lack a narrative, are often multi-disciplinary, and frequently seek to involve the audience in the
performance in some way. Elements of them may be planned while retaining room for improvisation. They can take place anywhere.
The term originated with Allan
Kaprow's piece 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959), although the first happening is sometimes considered to be a 1952
performance of Theater Piece No. 1 by John Cage (a teacher of Kaprow in
the mid-50s) at Black Mountain College. Accounts of
exactly what this performance involved differ, but most agree that Cage recited poetry and read lectures, M. C. Richards read her poetry,
David Tudor performed on a prepared piano, Robert Rauschenberg
showed some of his paintings and Merce Cunningham danced. All these
things took place at the same time, and among the audience, rather than on a stage.
In Britain, one of the first major happenings was the Albert Hall Poetry
Incarnation on June 11, 1965, when an audience
of 7,000 people witnessed and participated in performances by some of the leading avant-garde young British and American poets of the day. One of the participants, Jeff Nuttall, went on to organise a number of further happenings, often working with his friend, the sound and performance poet Bob Cobbing.
See also
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